Zero

Don’t you just hate it when you’ve been photographing for a while and realize that one of your camera settings was set wrong.  I hate to admit it, but that’s happened to me a lot.  Either the ISO was too high or the lens was on manual focus and if I didn’t have a LCD on the back of the camera, I wouldn’t have figured it out for days.  So here’s a good habit to get into:

What does it mean to zero out your camera?  Simply put, change all your settings to the “zero” state for you.  The zero state is the settings you use most often.  My zero state is Aperture Priority mode, ISO 400, f/5.6.  For Manual Mode, ISO 100, 1/60, f/5.6.  And for the lenses I always set them in autofocus and image stabilization on, if they have it.

That’s it for this tip.  There isn’t a single definitive zero state.  It depends on you and what sort of photography you do. So You’ll have to figure out your zero state.  I can’t tell you how much doing this simple little thing has helped me.  Now when I pull out my camera, I know what  it should be set on, so if I need that quick shot, I’m good to go.